NASA attempted the first test of its kind two weeks ago to see if in the future a killer rock could be nudged out of Earth’s way. The Dart spacecraft carved a crater into the asteroid Dimorphos, hurling debris out into space and creating a cometlike trail.
The space agency attempted the first test of its kind two weeks ago to see if in the future a killer rock could be nudged out of Earth’s way.
“This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the universe throws at us,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington. The Dart spacecraft carved a crater into the asteroid Dimorphos on Sept. 26, hurling debris out into space and creating a cometlike trail of dust and rubble stretching several thousand miles . It took days of telescope observations from Chile and South Africa to determine how much the impact altered the path of the 525-foot asteroid around its companion, a much bigger space rock.Before the impact, the moonlet took 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle its parent asteroid.
Neither asteroid posed a threat to Earth — and still don’t as they continue their journey around the sun. That’s why scientists picked the pair for the world’s first attempt to alter the position of a celestial body.
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